The public vote is now open to decide the winner of the Pizza Express Create Your Own Pizza competition. Out of a staggering 50,000 entries, the judging panel, which includes award-winning chefs and leading food writers, had a tough job whittling down the competitors to just 5 finalists.

The 5 recipes which made it through to the last leg of the competition include Kim Starr’s Pizza Cortona, inspired by her time in Italy. The pizza is topped with mozzarella, porcini mushrooms, bresaolo, parmesan, and rocket and it got the thumbs up from the Sunday Times food critic Lucas Hollweg.

Next up is the Pizza of the Gods, devised by Sophie Paterson and is made up of butternut squash, calabrese, goats cheese, rocket and parsley and was a hit with Pizza Club member and guest judge, Morag Athersmith.

Sarah Walker succeeded in creating a tasty vegan pizza which top chef, Francesco Mazzei described as “a real winner” and is topped with falafel, courgette, tahini, garlic and sesame seeds.

Simon Pritchard’s Pizza Da Morire was praised by Pizza Express Head Chef Antonio Romani for its unique combination of flavours which include gorgonzola, caramelised leeks, artichoke, streaky crispy pancetta, finished off with a drizzling of spicy chilli oil.

Finally, the only under 18 to make it to the final is 10-year-old Oliver Evans with his Leaning Tower of Pizza. Oliver created a pizza with toppings of olives, mushrooms, tomatoes, red onion, pepperoni and mozzarella all piled on top of each other to create a tower.

The vote closes on November 12th, with the winner of the £5,000 prize and the chance to have their pizza included on the new Pizza Express menu in January, being announced on November 30th.

1 Comment

Betsy
on October 21, 2010 at 2:58 pm

Looks like you can ALSO vote for the pizza you want to win via SMS text and not just the Pizza Express website.

I ate there today and noticed a table sign promoting me to text the short code for the pizza I want to win to 63757.

After digging around I found out that It’s through Pizza Express’s mobile provider, MePlease. The website for the vote is here: http://www.mepls.com/QEQUEELKGV

Why aren’t they’re advertising this more as a voting utility? Surely customers would love to know they can vote via their mobiles by just sending a text and it definitely puts them at the forefront of communication with their customers!

PS: I was also sent a code for FREE dough balls when I texted in my vote.. definitely letting my friends know about this one!